Sarkozy to be tried over 2012 campaign financing

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is to face trial on charges of illegally financing his failed 2012 re-election bid, causing more trouble for the country's rightwing Republicans party. The prosecution claims Sarkozy spent nearly double the legal limit of 22.5 million euros (USD 24 million) on his lavish campaign, using false billing from a public relations firm called Bygmalion. A legal source said today that one of two investigating magistrates in charge of the case, Serge Tournaire, had decided on February 3 that the case should go to trial.

Sarkozy's lawyer announced plans to appeal the decision. Bygmalion charged 15.2 million euros in campaign events to Sarkozy's rightwing party -- which at the time was called the UMP, but has since been renamed the Republicans -- instead of billing the president's campaign. The affair came to light in 2014 but investigators have yet to determine who ordered the fraud.

Sarkozy, who failed in a presidential comeback bid last year, told investigators last year he knew nothing about the billing and put the responsibility squarely on Bygmalion and the UMP. Only one other president -- Jacques Chirac -- has been tried in France's Fifth Republic, which was founded in 1958. He was give a two-year suspended jail term in 2011 over a fake job scandal. News of the trial comes as the Republicans' candidate for this year's presidential election, Francois Fillon, faces his own scandal over parliamentary jobs for his family.

Fillon apologised on Monday for employing his wife over 15 years as an aide -- which is legal -- but continued to deny the more serious allegations that she barely worked for her average monthly salary of around 3,700 euros. The son of a Hungarian immigrant father, Sarkozy was nicknamed the "bling-bling" president for his flashy displays of wealth. His trial will focus on whether he himself caused the over-spending in 2012 by demanding that additional rallies be organised towards the end of his campaign, even though they were bound to blow the budget.

The judicial source said he was accused of having ignored two warnings from advisors in March and April 2012 about his spending, which came to "at least 42.8 million euros". The divisive 62-year-old rightwinger faces up to a year in a prison and a fine of 3,750 euros if convicted. He could yet be spared trial, however, given that the second investigating magistrate in the case disagreed that Sarkozy be put in the dock.

Thirteen other people will be tried alongside him on charges ranging from fraud to illegal campaign financing, including Bygmalion's management and Jerome Lavrilleux, deputy manager of Sarkozy's lavish 2012 campaign.